PUBLISH
YOUR BEST WORK IN
THE AMERICAN NATURALIST
- 1. Be part of the lasting legacy of the most influential papers in your field. What journal published Hutchinson’s classic “Homage to Santa Rosalia,” Hairston, Smith, and Slobodkin’s “Community Structure, Population Control, and Competition” (“The World is Green”), or Paine’s “Food Web Complexity and Species Diversity”? What about Felsenstein’s “Phylogenies and the Comparative Method,” Hamilton’s “The Evolution of Altruistic Behavior,” or Wright’s “Coefficients of Inbreeding and Relationship”? American Naturalist papers shape the field with their extraordinary and lasting impact. Join the list!
- 2. Reach a broad audience. Articles are sought in any area of the biological sciences that touch on the natural world. Cutting-edge empirical and theoretical contributions both have a home in Am Nat, as does work using any method at any time scale, ranging from the ecological to the macroevolutionary. Whether your focus is population genetics, evolutionary genetics, or genomics; population, community, or ecosystem ecology; ecological or evolutionary dynamics; natural selection or sexual selection; behavior, ecophysiology, phylogenetics, or macroevolution, your paper will be given full consideration by an Associate Editor in your own field. Check out the Editorial Board and you’ll see!
- 3. Receive extraordinary attention for your work throughout the publication process. As an author, you deserve the best. The American Naturalist provides extensive and insightful reviews and editorial decisions; even authors whose work has been declined offer testimonials to the value of the feedback. The skill and professionalism of the entire editorial process lead authors to consider Am Nat the gold standard.
- 4. Support not-for-profit publishing. Contribute to one of the few top science journals still run in-house by an academic publisher! The University of Chicago Press, a not-for-profit division of the university, exists to assist researchers to achieve the highest-quality publications. The American Naturalist puts science before profit.
- 5. Support the American Society of Naturalists. A healthy journal fosters the ASN’s other activities: running outstanding stand-alone meetings, conferring awards such as the Young Investigator Prize and the Student Research Award, and maintaining a leadership role in advocacy of fair and egalitarian publishing practices. A healthy journal also keeps membership in the ASN low and affordable, especially for students.
- 6. Publish where costs are affordable—or at no cost! Itemized page charges mean that only processes needed for a particular manuscript are charged. No access to institutional funds? Then the ASN waiver covers all production charges (for the cost of membership if an author isn’t already a member--$20 for a student). E-articles mean color typesetting can be free. In every issue, papers are published at no cost to the authors.
- 7. Meet funder mandates for open access. In addition to itemized charges, Am Nat offers the kind of gold open access required by funders—with a CC-BY license and APCs. All articles also qualify for green open access (deposit in a repository after embargo).
- 8. Publish with a pioneer of innovative practices that benefit authors and the community at large. The U of C Press was one of the first to publish electronically. The mandate for open data in public archives (e.g., Dryad) was spearheaded by American Naturalist editors. To ensure that authors’ work is treated fairly regardless of gender or nationality or other implicit bias, Am Nat was among the first ecology and evolution journals to embrace double-blind reviewing. Independent of the dictates of a massive profit-making organization, The American Naturalist can respond nimbly to the times.
Does
your paper pose new and significant problems, introduce novel subjects, develop
conceptual unification, and change the way people think? Then send your manuscript to The
American Naturalist today!
